St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 22, 2001

Morris' Pitching Purrs Again for Cardinals

By Mike Eisenbath

Four years ago, Matt Morris made his major-league pitching debut at Houston's Astrodome. He allowed the Astros seven hits and one run in five innings.

"I'm a different pitcher now," he said. "A lot better."

Maybe the best the Cardinals have. Less than 20 hours after his club seemed comatose in a 10-1 loss to the Astros on Friday night at Enron Field, Morris dominated for six of his seven innings in a 9-2 victory Saturday.

Not that he was awful in the other inning. Morris allowed two first-inning runs on four singles.

But the Cardinals, who had averaged three runs in losing six of their previous eight games, had given him four runs in the top of the first. Quite a departure from Morris' previous start, when he looked just as good but lost 2-1 to the Diamondbacks.

"Scoring runs early is huge for any pitcher," said J.D. Drew, who had two homers for the Cardinals. "It lets him go out and do what he wants to do, not feel like he's pressed to not make any mistakes."

The only mistake Morris felt he committed in the first inning was trying to throw too hard, a result of feeling so good when he took the mound. That kept him from paying enough attention to putting pitches where he wanted.

Once he understood, the Astros couldn't touch him. After an infield single by Brad Ausmus loaded the bases in the first, Morris ended the inning by getting Chris Truby to ground out. He retired the next 15 batters, getting four on strikeouts and eight on ground balls.

Richard Hidalgo led off the seventh with a single, the fifth and final hit the Astros managed in Morris' seven innings. But Ausmus followed with a double-play grounder, and Morris struck out Truby.

"Matt throws the ball so great," Drew said. "Today was probably the best day I've seen him since he's had his arm back after that surgery. And that's a confidence-builder for us to see."

Especially considering the plight of the Cardinals' pitching.

Their 5.80 staff ERA is the worst in the National League by about a half-run. (The overall ERA in the league at the start of Saturday's games was 4.25.) Only the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers have higher ERAs in the American League.

"To have a chance to win, you have to pitch," said manager Tony La Russa.

Morris (2-2) lowered his ERA to 4.13, more than two runs less than any other starter on the team. The Astros never could center in on his sinking fastball, which often reached 95 mph, and he kept them off-balance with his slider and curveball.

"When you've got a guy throwing that hard with a curveball working, that's tough to hit," Cardinals left fielder Ray Lankford said. "It was great watching that."

And the Cardinals rewarded Morris with some offensive help. Leadoff man Fernando Vina was hit by a pitch to open the game. Drew yanked a two-run homer to right field off Houston starter Jose Lima to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead.

"I was trying to hit the ball hard up the middle, and he got the ball out over the plate," Drew said. "I put a good swing on it. You saw what happened."

Albert Pujols walked, and Lankford drove him in with a triple that traveled more than 400 feet to center field. He scored on Craig Paquette's broken-bat double down the left-field line.

Vina singled and later scored on Jim Edmonds' single in the second inning for a 5-2 Cardinals lead. Drew made it 6-2 with a home run in the fourth that traveled a mere 343 feet but landed deep into the left-field seats.

"He left a changeup out over the plate, and with that short porch in left it gets out," Drew said.

The Cardinals scored three times in the fifth, highlighted by Paquette's 377-foot shot to right field. It was the fourth homer of the season off Lima, who yielded an NL-record 48 last year. And it showed that the Cardinals' offense might have some life after all.